1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to point-to-point or point-to-multipoint wireless communications systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods for transmitting secondary data from within a communication channel established for group communications between wireless telecommunication devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
In wireless telecommunication devices, such as cellular phones, PDAs, mini-laptops, and advanced pagers, the devices typically communicate over long distances by bridging telephone calls through existing cellular telephone networks and passing data packets across the network. These wireless devices often have limited to significant data processing and computing capability, and can accordingly send and receive software programs, in addition to voice, across the telephone network. The communication channels established between the wireless telecommunication devices and the telecommunication portals, such as cellular base stations, have a limited bandwidth to allocate to any one particular device.
There exists a wireless telecommunication service that provides a quick one-to-one or one-to-many communication that is generically referred to as “Push-To-Talk” (PTT) capability. The specific PTT group of recipient devices for the communicating wireless device is commonly set up by the carrier. A PTT communication connection is typically initiated by a single button-push on the wireless device that activates a half-duplex link between the speaker and each member device of the group and once the button is released, the device can receive incoming PTT transmissions once the button is released. In some arrangements, the PTT speaker will have the “floor” where no other group member can speak while the speaker is speaking. Once the speaker releases the PTT button, any other individual member of the group can engage their PTT button and they will have the floor.
In existing PTT systems, member devices establish a communication channel for an outgoing voice communication and a channel for incoming communications. It is preferable to optimize the quality of voice transmission, and therefore, the full bandwidth of each channel is typically utilized to transmit the voice data packets to insure a high fidelity transmission. If other data is needed to be sent from and to a wireless communication device, typically either a separate channel is opened to the device solely for the additional data, which is expensive, or other existing channels allocated to the device, such as signaling and control channels, are utilized for the additional data. However, utilizing the other channels restricts the communication on those channels, which is often already predetermined by the system such as with control channels, and can impair the functionality of the device on the wireless network.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide a system and method for a wireless communication device that is a member of a group to have the ability to send and/or receive non-voice data to and from other members of the group without necessarily opening an additional communication channel or utilizing and interfering with other channels established for other features and functions. The system and method should not compromise the integrity of other PTT communications or unduly utilize device resources. It is thus to the provision of such a system and method to allow this secondary data transmission that the present invention is primarily directed.